No Use Dying Over Spilled Milk (22 page)

I can’t remember for sure, but we must have spun around three or four times, bouncing off snow-covered road banks, small trees, and other unseen obstacles. Eventually we came to a stop in the middle of the road. Except for a hissing from the front of the car and loss of one headlight, the car seemed to be in one piece. Even the windshield wipers were still clacking away rhythmically.

Quickly I checked myself for broken bones and gushing blood. My arms were a little sore from having braced myself against the wheel, but otherwise everything was intact. It is a horrible thing to have to admit, but I didn’t even check the backseat. On the other hand, did David check on Goliath after he slew him? As for poor Stayrook, Mama used to say that each Amish person has an extra guardian angel assigned, to protect him or her from motorized traffic. Since Arnold undoubtedly had none, I figured the fight was fair.

The driver door was jammed, and the front passenger door was not immediately cooperative, but I managed to kick it open. Fortunately I was able to locate my pocket book, with its precious cargo of crazy cake, under the dashboard. All told, within seconds of coming to a stop, I and my worldly possessions were slipping around in the snow. Where we were headed, I hadn’t the foggiest idea.

Not that it mattered. The blizzard may have muffled the gunshot somewhat, but it was still loud enough to make me scream. The fact that the bullet actually grazed my left ear I hold responsible for my dampened bloomers. I am proud to say, however, that I didn’t drop my pocket book.

I will spare you the profanity that issued forth from Arnold Ledbetter’s mouth. Suffice it to say, it was clear his mama had never washed his mouth out with soap. At any rate, the gist of his expletives was that I should stand stock still and not even as much as breathe if I valued my life.

I did what I was told. With Pooky Bear officially in my life, I wasn’t about to bite the dust anytime soon. That went for snow as well. In retrospect, I might have been better off continuing my mad dash.

“Where the hell is she?” I heard Arnold say.

It was a good question. Although I was only feet from the car, I could barely make out its dark hulk through the swirling powder. I couldn’t see Arnold at all. The shot that trimmed my ear hair had been a fluke.

I stood absolutely still, debating whether or not I should call out my position. If Arnold really wanted to kill me, why make it easier? On the other hand, why be the recipient of a bullet that was meant as a warning shot? While I debated I heard mumbling, and then some more angry curses from Arnold. The gun went off again. This time I bolted blindly, much as Susannah does when she sees me carrying dirty dishes.

“Magdalena, stay right where you are,” Stayrook called. “I got the gun away from Arnold. Stay right where you are, and I’ll find you.”

Stayrook was as good as his word, although the fact that he ran into me a few seconds later was purely coincidental.

“Ow,” I moaned, rubbing my nose.

“Shhh!” Stayrook warned. “He can’t see us. If we zigzag a little we can lose him entirely.”

“Where’s the gun?” I demanded.

“I threw it away,” Stayrook said.

He grabbed me by an arm and began pulling me up the road. Or was it down? With zero visibility it was impossible to tell which direction we were headed.

We zigged and we zagged. In the receding distance we could hear Arnold yelling obscenities, body names for parts God has yet to invent. After about fifty yards Stayrook steered me toward a sharp left.

“We’ll get off the road here. Even if he gets the car started he’ll never find us.”

“Of course he won’t get the car started, I—” I gulped. “I left the keys in the ignition!”

Stayrook was gallant enough not to blame me. “These things happen,” he said. “Now careful, there should be a barbed-wire fence right about here.”

I couldn’t see Stayrook, much less strands of wire, so I did the ladylike thing and let him go ahead. Much to his credit he didn’t curse when he located the invisible wire. A sharp intake of breath and a faint moan barely expressed his discomfort.

“Watch your hair,” he said.

He held open two strands of barbed wire for me to step through. I ducked, but not low enough. Or else there was a third strand. At any rate, the next thing I knew I was Rapunzel. Mama was right, I am too vain to wear a hat in cold weather. But I learned my lesson, Mama. The fistfuls of hair I had to leave behind will make some bird a nice soft nest come spring.

We plodded across a frozen field, avoiding the bigger drifts by trial and error. This time Mama was wrong. The snow up my dress would not have been an issue if Mama hadn’t made such an issue out of women wearing pants. “Only harlots and hussies wear pants,” Mama was fond of saying. “God wants you to dress like a lady, and that means skirts.” She said this so many times that I was utterly brainwashed, and even after Mama herself started wearing pants, I was stuck with skirts. Why God would prefer a cold crotch over snuggy jeans is beyond my ken, but I am powerless to change my ways.

It was by the grace of God that we stumbled across the barn. It was a small barn, and even though it had once been painted red, we didn’t see it until it loomed close enough to scare us. Had we been walking just twenty feet to the left, we never would have seen it. Stayrook’s extra angel had definitely been pressed into service.

Excitedly we fumbled our way along the side of the barn until we found the great sliding door. Stayrook, ahead of me, struggled with the door for a few minutes before I volunteered my help. Snow had frozen in its track, and it took both of us, one pushing, the other pulling, to break it loose. Then we cracked the door just wide enough for us to slip through. Once we were inside, Stayrook lit a succession of matches.

“Yikes!” I think I said. Whatever the word, it was certainly no worse than that.

I had been in many barns before, but none quite like this. It was immediately obvious that the barn hadn’t been used for years. The floor was covered with dust and bird droppings. Spiderwebs hung from the rafters like garlands. In one comer a slat from the roof was missing, and snow was sifting in, forming a long, narrow drift. In the opposite corner a pile of hay moldered. Leaning up against it was an old pitchfork with one tine broken off.

“Doesn’t look too bad,” Stayrook said. “Graddle nie. ”

“What?”

Stayrook pointed with a lit match to the miserable hay pile that was little more than refuse. “Crawl in there. If you can sort of dig your way into that haystack, it will help you stay warm until I get back.”

I grabbed the hand he was pointing with. “Forget the haystack. What’s this about you getting back? Where are you going in the first place?”

The match burned out, and I dropped his hand.

“To get help, of course.”

“Where?”

“The Hooley place. They live less than two miles away.”

“How do you know that?”

He stamped the snow off his shoes, and I could smell the dust rise.

“I recognize the pitchfork,” he said. “Sam Hooley broke the tine trying to move a boulder.”

“Well, Sam must have broken his back as well, Stayrook, because this place hasn’t been used in years. Not by humans, at least.”

He chuckled. “This is Sam’s old barn. He switched from grain to dairying about ten years ago and needed a bigger barn. He was going to add on to this, but then his house burned down.

“Sam’s wife, Leah, always wanted to live on the other side of Neuhauser Road so she could have a view of the woods. When their house burned down, that’s where they decided to build the new one. Built a new barn there too. This one isn’t used until the haying season, and then only as temporary storage.”

I breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Well, in that case, if the Hooleys live less than two miles away, I’m coming with you.”

“Ach, no! Even though I know where we are, I could easily get lost in this storm. You must stay here where it’s safe, Magdalena.”

I was touched by the concern in his voice, but somewhat irritated by his stupidity.

“Safe? Arnold Ledbetter is out there. He could stumble on this barn any minute, just like we did. You call that safe? No sirree, buster. I’d rather take my chance out there with Mother Nature than with the mad manager of Daisybell Dairies.”

Stayrook lit another match and held it dangerously close to my face. “Mr. Ledbetter isn’t likely to find this place. Not in a storm like this. And if he does, you’ll be hidden. I’ll help bury you in the hay before I go.”

It seemed like a stupid plan to me, and I made another attempt to dissuade Stayrook from his foolhardy mission.

“But I must go,” he said stubbornly.

The years I’d spent arguing with Susannah came in handy. “You aren’t making a lick of sense, dear,” I said calmly. “Think of it, Stayrook. If it’s snowing so hard Arnold can’t find us in the barn this far from the car, then it’s for sure you’re not going to find the Hooleys’ two miles away.”

“Ach du lieber! You nag worse than my wife,” he said. “It is my duty to go to the Hooleys’ for help.”

For a moment I felt like his wife.

“Your duty? You didn’t take me hostage at gunpoint and force me to drive off the main road in the middle of a blizzard. Come on, Stayrook, you were a hostage yourself, weren’t you?”

My only answer was the heavy barn door sliding shut behind him.

I am not ashamed to admit that I am terrified of the dark. It’s Mama’s fault, you know. I was eight when Grandma Yoder died, far too young in my opinion to view a dead body. But Mama thought otherwise, and to keep her quiet I agreed to peek into the upstairs bedroom where Grandma was laid out, in her Sunday best, on her bed.

Mama said she never meant for me to go up there alone, and that if I’d but waited a minute or two, she would have held my hand. Well, she should have said something at the time. I took a good long look at Grandma, who, incidentally, somehow managed to wear a bigger scowl in death than she had in life. And that’s saying plenty.

At any rate, I was standing at the foot of Grandma’s bed, alone, when the lights went out. The house was plunged into utter blackness, and me just inches from Grandma on her bed. I’m not saying it was a supernatural event or anything, but when I checked with Aaron Miller, who lived across the lane, and with Sadie Schrock, who lived on the next farm down, both of them denied having power outages at their houses.

For one horrible minute that lasted half my lifetime, I thought I would die of fright. When the lights came back on, Mama would find me with hair turned white, eyes glazed over, and turned into a statue, just like Lot’s wife.

Of course, that’s not what happened. What happened was even worse. When the lights came on I saw immediately that the scowl on Grandma’s face had turned into a smile. Sadie said she heard my screams all the way to her house, and with the windows closed.

Now almost forty years later, I was surrounded by darkness in the barn, and my heart began to pound. I’m not talking about the kind of pounding required to pound a nail into a wall in order to hang a picture. I’m talking about pounding so hard it could tear the walls down. If I didn’t do something constructive, and quick, I was going to have a heart attack.

Almost instinctively, I dove for that pile of rancid hay and burrowed into it with the speed of a rabbit chased by a fox. Forget about heat loss. It was my need for something to be around me, other than blackness, that was my motivation. It was the same need that drove me under my covers every time a floorboard squeaked for over a year after Grandma’s death. And while it may not have been a pile of blankets, the mound of moldy hay was certainly an improvement over standing out in the open. I was just starting to breathe normally when an icy hand grabbed my foot.

I screamed loud enough to wake the dead in China. I yanked my captured foot, but whoever or whatever was holding it yanked back. I kicked at the restraining hand with my free foot, but to no avail. I screamed again. I writhed, kicked, and screamed, like a hog being trussed for market. Then I played dead.

“A little late to play possum, don’t you think?” a muffled voice said, as the hand released me.

My intent was to scramble out of the hay pile, but I barely had time to flex a leg muscle when the cold fingers closed around my ankle again.

“Not so fast, Miss Yoder. You’re much safer in here than you are out there.”

“Danny? Danny Hem?” Of course it was him. The odor of rancid hay is hard to describe, but it is nothing like bourbon.

“Yeah, it’s me all right. Come on in.”

“In where?”

“In here.” Danny tugged again, and this time I cooperated by shooting backward on my belly.

“Well, I’ll be,” I said, sitting up.

I couldn’t see where I was, but I’ll describe it as a little room. A very little room. More like a big wooden box on its side. It was as dark as the inside of a dog’s stomach in there, and just as warm. Frankly, it must have smelled just as bad, what with the bourbon and an obviously unwashed Danny.

“It isn’t the Hilton, but I made it myself,” Danny said proudly.

“You?”

“Yeah. Originally the hay was over in the corner, and this—”

“This is an old wagon bed,” I said triumphantly.

“Yeah, well, this was turned upside down, so I tipped it on its side. Then I moved the hay over here, and voila.”

“You’re a master architect, Danny, but what on earth are you doing here in the first place? Slumming it a bit, aren’t we? No offense, but this isn’t exactly your lifestyle.”

I could hear Danny swallow a sip of something. “Yeah, that’s just it. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here. Went to bed one night—yeah, that same night we ate French—and woke up here.”

“Did you drive?” I didn’t remember seeing a car outside, but then again, there could have been a fleet out front and we would have missed them.

“Don’t know.”

“Well, let’s see, dear, by my reckoning you’ve been here at least two days. Have you even bothered to step outside?”

“Can’t.”

“Never say can’t, dear,” I said, quoting Mama. “Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.”